Day 9

31^st October. Sadly this means it is the last day of the science festival for this year. It has been a full and fun week, enjoyed by one and all. I was Maths busking in the air and space hall for most of the morning. My chosen busk for today was the tying a knot in the scarf trick. I seemed to spend most of yesterday handcuffed to Katie but today I was with Duncan. He did the mind reading birthday trick. Around mid morning was a steam engine demo and we stopped to watch that. A very amusing guy who asked questions of the kids in the audience. The demo included 2 coke cans filled with hot water to show the power of steam. They were crushed. I was impressed by this and think it will be something I remember from this festival. At 2.30pm I helped Duncan assisted an event he had helped on earlier. A workshop given by a lady from Imperial College London. This was called ‘Through the looking glass’. Different shapes were built from plastic models and viewed at various angles through homemade kaleidoscopes. Then it ws time to go home, its all over L I went to collect my things and most other people had gone home. Carolyn presented me with a gift bag containing a bottle of red wine. A sweet note on it thanked me for all I’d done from the MOSI team. I was very touched and hadn’t expected this. Thanks very much! xxx Duncan and I chatted with the mathematicians who were keen to recruit more buskers and invited us for a drink. So we joined them in a nearby pub for coffee. I met Bubblz the maths clown at last aka Caroline and a familiar face started speaking to me. I realised it was a guy I’d seen in costume dressed up as mathematician John Dee. His real name is Costel and he lives near me so we exchanged email addresses as you do. These maths people never switch off. They had to travel back to London and be at work the next day, some had written prep to do for this and he they were surrounded by luggage talking about maths and looking rather comfortable. It was truly wonderful to meet and work with all of thse lovely and skilled people during the course of these 9 days. I shall miss it and thus hope to do it again next year. I looked forward to the xmas do which of course has now passed. I hope everyone is well and wish them luck in all they do if I don’t see them again. XXX